Very Much Alive
by deer-prudence
Summary: Spoilers up to 4x01 The Beginning of the End and then goes AU. Claire is finally leaving the island after 108 days. Charlie sacrificed himself so Claire and Aaron could get home safely, but is it really all for nothing? Rated PG-13.


**VERY MUCH ALIVE**

_**Spoilers**_ _up to 4x01 (The Beginning of the End) and then goes AU. Claire is finally leaving the island after 108 days. Charlie sacrificed himself so Claire and Aaron could get home safely, but is it really all for nothing? Rated PG-13 for some mild disturbing context. _

_Lost isn't mine and I'm simply a fan using these characters for my own good. I don't own anything, this story is simply fictional. I make no profit of this. _

After 108 days of calling the island home, I climbed onto the helicopter feeling bittersweet. I mean yeah, it hadn't exactly been much fun for me running away from monsters and being kidnapped, losing my memory, having to deliver Aaron in the jungle without any painkillers…

Losing the man I was just beginning to love after so many months of initial doubt.

But it had changed me. So much so that I didn't think that I would experience anything like it or grow so much in such a short time ever again.

On the island, my love for the two men of my life had begun and there it would always be free.  
Before the helicopter took off, as I was packing, Desmond came to me to say goodbye. I couldn't help but feel strange around him – he had seen Charlie die, knew exactly how it had happened, had seen the last breath he had ever taken, the fear in his eyes…

Desmond told me everything, sparing only a few details (namely the ones I didn't need to hear anyway) and then finally said that Charlie was a hero for doing what he did. I didn't care if he was the biggest hero of the world or if he had saved us all from this island, I just wanted him back, alive. Of course that wasn't possible. I just had to accept it – even if it tore me up inside.

"Claire..." Desmond started and I turned to him, holding Aaron in my arms. Desmond looked down at my baby and then back to my eyes. "There's one more thing. At first I thought that I shouldn't tell you because I think it might be strange for you, but...I just think you should know the real reason that Charlie did what he did."

I shivered at the mention of his name.

"I know why he did it, Desmond," I said. "It was the only way to save us."

"Yes, exactly." Desmond said but I looked him like he was going out of his mind. Did he think I didn't know that? "To save you and Aaron."

It was like I had heard the news of Charlie's death all over again when Desmond said the words.

"W-what?"

"I...saw a vision of him going to the Looking Glass and after that there was a flash of this moment, you getting on that helicopter," Desmond explained, glancing quickly over to the helicopter. I looked at him, still feeling shocked. Charlie hadn't done this to save us all, he'd done it for me and Aaron. I don't know it if was crazy, but at that moment I almost felt Charlie's presence, like he was there protecting me and Aaron. That was the first time I'd ever felt like that after the news. Ever since Hurley had told me about Charlie, I had just felt lost, alone and unprotected. Like I knew Charlie was somewhere but I just couldn't find him – hidden behind a closed door that I had no key for. Not yet anyway.

"Charlie died so that Aaron and I could be rescued?"

"No, no," Desmond protested. "Not because of you."

I was confused. "But you just said..."

"He died for what he believed in. He believed it was better for you and the baby to live somewhere else, in the real world. Safe. And if he could do something to ensure that, he would, no doubt about it. And...well he did it sister. That's how much he loved you."

I looked down at Aaron and he smiled up at me. Oh to be that innocent, to not understand all the pain that I was surrounded by.

"He never told me that," I said quietly. "We didn't have time...to say...that…"

"I think he knew. And I think you know now, if you didn't before." Desmond said.

I nodded silently.

"Hey, lady, I wouldn't wanna hurry you up, but we really need to go now!" the pilot of the helicopter yelled at me and I turned to see him.

"I'm coming," I replied to him and then turned to Desmond again. "Thank you."

I pressed Aaron against me gently and gave Desmond a hug.

"I really hope all the best for you. And Penny," I said and he hugged me back.

"Take care of yourself Claire," Desmond said against my hair. "And of Aaron."

I leaned back and Desmond nodded a little, to send me off. I walked to the helicopter and never looked back.

I didn't really feel comfortable being in the air after the plane crash and I was sweating like a pig, shaking as I tried to calm myself down. I didn't want to scare Aaron so I mumbled him some rhymes I knew and then moved onto lullabies. He slept peacefully in my arms and I was grateful for his cheerful demeanour. It would be so much easier like this. It was hard enough for me to leave the island without having to hush a crying baby and stop myself from crying too. I was tired, incredibly tired and almost completely over-whelmed – my nerves were frayed, hanging by a thread.

The pilot had said he was flying to the boat that would take us to Los Angeles. My first thought was that I didn't know anybody there, there wasn't a place for me to go, I had no money or anything. I was scared that I would end up on the streets with Aaron. On the island I came to think about why I had taken the flight anyway. To give Aaron away. I came to the conclusion that the fortune teller had knew this would happen, I had such a strong feeling about it. Of course I was also a little bit scared of losing Aaron, that I had just imagined that theory to calm myself down if we ever got of the island.

What if the adoptive parents were there, waiting to take him away from me? I wouldn't - I just couldn't imagine doing that anymore. He was all that I had. I loved him. He was my son. Soon he would be running around with the other kids, having real clothes and a real roof over his head. Just like a normal child.

"You are everything to me," I whispered to Aaron, touching his cheek softly. I frowned when Aaron didn't move, like he usually did when he was asleep. He looked different somehow – stiller. "Aaron?" panic began to well up inside me. "Aaron!" I shook him gently, to try and wake him up. He didn't respond, didn't make a sound or even move. I opened his blanket and touched his chest – it was still, no rise and all of breath. "Oh my God," I began to panic then. "Aaron wake up!"

"Ma'am, are you okay there?" the pilot asked.

"Aaron, wake up, what's wrong with you? Do something! Wake up!"

But he wouldn't ever wake again.

*~*

Days went by, I didn't remember much of them. I saw hundreds of new faces, from different companies to help me get started but I just let all those fade away. It was like nothing mattered anymore. There was nothing to live for. They had taken Aaron away from me, to examine him, to find out why he had died. I sat in the waiting room, looking blankly ahead. I don't know how long I had waited there or what was going on around me.

"Miss Littleton?" I heard a man saying.

I stood up wiping my sore eyes.

"I have the report. The cause of death," he said. He was holding the papers in his hands, looking nervous.

"Yes?" I said hoarsely, feeling like my voice would just disappear any second now.

"Your son's body was...well, pretty damaged. And it's always a little harder to examine babies but I'd say..." he paused before finishing his sentence, "that your son was strangled in the womb. By the development of the organs, I'd say you were 8 months along with him." He watched me carefully. "When did you say you crashed on that island?"

"When I was 8 months along," I said scratchily, kind of knowing where he was going with this.

"And your son was born there normally, healthy and alive, after 9 months of pregnancy?"

"Yes. There was a doctor on the plane, he said Aaron was healthy, normal baby. He was alive when I got on that helicopter, but after few minutes he looked weird and I saw he was not breathing."

"Miss Littleton, are you claiming that your son was alive a week ago?"

"Yes he was!" I said indignantly. "I held him in my arms! He looked up at me and he grabbed my fingers with his tiny hand. He was very much alive."

"I'm sorry, miss, but bodies don't lie. Your son has been dead over 100 days now," he said, trying to look at me like he understood the pain I was going through. He didn't know anything.

"No!" I raged. "He was alive when I-"

"Have you seen a doctor? It's common that accidents like the plane crash you were part of can cause post-dramatic stress and make you think some things are different than they actually are, just so that you can cope with the trauma, maybe the pain of losing someone... like your child."

"No, you're wrong. This can't be..." I trailed off desperately but the doctor merely looked at me like I was the most pathetic person in the whole world. "I'm telling you, he was alive!"

"Yes, in your womb. But he didn't come out alive. I'm sorry to tell you this, but it's really important for you to understand this. So you can start moving on."

"Moving on?" I yelled, full of anger. There was so much I wanted to say to this man but my mind just wouldn't let my mouth speak them. "I want my baby. I want Aaron. I'll take him somewhere else, somewhere where they can tell me the truth."

"This is the truth," the man emphasised and I stared at him.

*~*

It's been three years now and I still can't figure what happened. The report stayed the same, after I had insisted visiting another specialist to hear his opinion about Aaron. It said in the report that he was strangled to death by his own umbilical cord. I've been thinking about it over and over again, reading my journals just to remember things more vividly. I knew them almost inside-out by now, since I had read them hundred times now. I phoned people who had been rescued from the island, just like me to try and ask them about Aaron.

They all said he was alive and that I hadn't imagined things. Jack and Kate revealed though that they had had weird experiences, like Jack seeing him dead father walking and Kate seeing a black horse, just like the one she had once known, but she then later said that it might be that the horse had run away from the Others or something. To me it sounded like she was giving me an excuse so she wouldn't sound crazy.

The most rewarding answer I got was from Rose. I knew that she was religious person, as was Charlie and I also knew that I could trust her word. She said that before she came to that island, she was diagnosed with terminal cancer and that the island had cured her. After she was back home, she went to hospital and they said that the cancer was not as aggressive as it was before but it was still not to be cured. I came to think of this and that maybe, just maybe Aaron had actually died at the crash but the island had cured him. And when we left from the island he had returned to what he actually was – dead.

I know it was a scary thought and probably not possible but I don't know, maybe it was just something I actually started to believe in after I had thought about it such a long time. Sometimes I thought that if Aaron wouldn't be buried I would return to the island with his body, just so that I could prove my theory right.

Every year on Aaron's birthday I bake a cake and light the candles for him. I think about him all the time, though I have nothing but his little blue blanket to remind me of him. He'd be three years old now but he'll always be an infant in my memories, two months old and very much alive.

I don't think a parent can ever get over losing their child but at least I know that he's got somebody to look after him wherever he's gone now. He'll be safe with Charlie until I come knocking on heavens door myself one day.


End file.
